Can I dual-boot in VirtualBox?

Question

I use Windows 7. I also run Ubuntu 12.04 in VirtualBox. The other day I wanted to try Lubuntu. Is there a way to dual-boot Ubuntu 12.04 and Lubuntu in VirtualBox?

Solution 1

If you just want to test the Desktop Environment of Lubuntu (LXDE) you can follow this how-to and get an lubuntu desktop on top of your current Ubuntu installation.

In this way you don't have the need of a second operating system. If this is not enough for your tests I'd suggest to install a second Virtual machine is much more easier than having one with dual boot.

Solution 2

VirtualBox runs GRUB on startup. GRUB is capable of dual-boot. Therefore, VirtualBox would be more than capable of dual booting.

Solution 3

With VirtualBox you can have any number of virtual machines, each with its own OS. There's absolutely no need to complicate things with dual boot unless you want to play with configuring dual boot.

Keeping OSes separate makes it much easier to play with different distros etc. - you can just delete the whole machine when you're done with it.

As a bonus, if you have enough RAM, you can run multiple virtual machines at the same time, no need to reboot from one to another.

Comments

[thorstorm]

Ubuntu + LXDE ≠ Lubuntu. The latter distribution has different packages installed that standard Ubuntu.

[Takkat]

Just confirming this: I am running a dual-boot Ubuntu/WindowsXP VM for years now.

[ricciocri]

You are right, in the how-to i Linked the command to use is: sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop that should install not just LXDE.

[thorstorm]

Not even installing lubuntu-desktop will render Ubuntu exactly like Lubuntu. There will still be many, many packages which are not included in lubuntu. Running Lubuntu desktop would render Ubuntu faster though.

[horIzoN]

Since when did VirtualBox run on GRUB? Plus, I do not have GRUB as I only run one real OS: Windows 7.

[fffred]

I disagree with this claim. Dual-booting a virtual machine can be useful to test the bootloader.

[Sergey]

@fffred: this is exactly what I said in my answer: "no need to complicate things with dual boot unless you want to play with configuring dual boot".